Extracts from the Character of a Virtuoso.
'The virtuoso is one who has sold his estate in land to purchase one in scallop, couch, and cockle shells, and has abandoned the society of men for that of insects, worms, grubs, lizards, tortoises, beetles, and moths. His study is like Noah's ark, the general rendezvous of all creatures in the universe, and the greatest part of his movables are the remainders of the deluge. His travels are not designed as visits to the inhabitants of any place, but to the pits, shores, and hills; and from whence he fetches not the treasure but the trumpery. He is ravished at finding an uncommon shell or an odd-shaped stone, and is desperately enamoured at first sight of an unusual marked butterfly, which he will hunt a whole day to be master of. He traffics to all places, and has his correspondents in every part of the world. He preserves carefully those creatures which other men industriously destroy, and cultivates sedulously those plants which others root up as weeds. His cash consists much in old coins, and he thinks the face of Alexander on one of them worth more than all his conquests.'
Character of a City Militiaman.
After describing the contests in Flanders being re-fought by the newsmongers in the coffee-houses, the sketch proceeds:—
'Our greatest actions must be buffooned in show as well as talk. Shall Namur be taken and our heroes of the city not show their prowess upon so great an occasion? It must never be said that the coffee-houses dared more than Moorfields. No; for the honour of London, out comes the foreman of the shop, very formidable in buff and bandoleers, and away he marches, with feather in cap, to the general rendezvous in the Artillery Ground. There these terrible mimics of Mars are to spend their fury in noise and smoke upon a Namur erected for that purpose on a molehill, and by the help of guns and drums out-stink and out-rattle Smithfield in all its bravery, and would be too hard for the greatest man in all France, if they had him but amongst them. Yet this is but skirmishing, the hot service is in another place, when they engage the capons and quart pots; never was onset more vigorous, for they come to handy blows immediately, and now is the real cutting and slashing, and tilting without quarter: were the towns in Flanders all walled with beef, and the French as good meat as capons, and dressed the same way, the king need never beat his drums for soldiers; and all these gallant fellows would come in voluntarily, the meanest of which would be able to eat a marshal.'
These descriptions of character are concluded by contrasts drawn between the virtues and vices of the respective sexes, and the authoress remarks that if the masses are to be measured by the instances of either Tullia, Claudia, or Messalina, by Sardanapalus, Nero, or Caligula, the human race will certainly be found the vilest part of the creation.
The essayist records that she has gained one experience by her treatise:—